man oh man, it is so hard to follow a DD with a MD re freekin hunger! Especially as I probably burn at least 500 cals in spin class on a Friday, which would be an UD (to follow Wed DD), but we are going out to a dinner party tomorrow night with apps, dinner, desert, wine... so I made today a MD and tomorrow an UD.

On the good news, my weight seems to be dropping more rapidly in the last few weeks if my pants don't lie ... but crimminy this hunger is tough two days in a row, and giving me the feelings of low blood sugar (bonking) and head ache too

just had an extra half a cucumber and some mushroom slices.

anyhow, I will have to see how my intermittent MDs in Dec strategy is going to actually work (I have several bouts of UDs back to back... and while I "could" in theory DD on a party or holiday day, I know I actually won't, and frankly, the social weirdness of hardly eating or eating very low cal in some of these settings is something I am just not up for). ok JUDDD calm, you are to come back and help me just do my best... which is ultimately at this time of year to NOT gain... and take any loss as a bonus.

I have plotted out 6 MDs to Jan 1... and 3 of them fall on spin workout days... so those might need to be more like lowish UDs. I really cannot abide feeling this crummy.

I'm not sure I have anything to offer either! When you have a whole lot of social engagements, it can be almost impossible to stick with rotations. You could save almost all your calories for the party, and just nibble or drink your DD calories. Tough? Yes. But doable if you really must. But I think just being careful those days, and having really, really clean DDs when you can, you can probably maintain for the month.

If your hungry because of spin class, eat protein. When I started running, I was the same way. Some one on here told me to eat chicken, hard boiled eggs, or something on that order before or after hand and it seemed to do the trick on DD's. I did reach a point where it was.....uggghhh chicken again....and I found these low calorie energy bars for work outs. They seem to do the trick also.

Also some dont want to eat back the calories they burn, but maybe up your DD calories by 250 (you said you burn about 500) that might help. Your body still burns calories after you exercise so you might not notice the extra few calories at all. If you start to stall you can slowly subtract from the 250 calories until you get to the point of not starving again.

The beauty of JUDDD is it doesnt have to be totally straight forward. Everyone is different, so you need to tweak until you find your spot. Some people can have 700 calorie DD's while others have to have 0 calorie DD's. But most important is listen to your body, if its telling you its hungry after a work out. Eat something, healthy of course! Another point too is....you might not really be as hungry as you think....but thirsty. Make sure you drink enough before/during/after your spin class. Remember thirst sometimes hides as a hungry feeling too!!! You might think you drank enough, but really your body might be saying....ummm no!

Propel is a good no calorie drink for workouts. We give them to our daughter when she is playing softball. She plays for a travel team and is the catcher. She can catch for 7 games in a weekend in 90 degree weather in the summers. One of the trainers told us propel is better than gatorade. This was because she was sweating so much and would get lightheaded and stuff like that from the fluid loss. The trainer told us for every 2 waters she had, to have a propel also. And she doesnt have the issues anymore.

Hope you find something to help you!!!!

ps....forgot to add...during social eating, I find if I drink water (with lemon when possible) instead of pop or whatever while I am eating, I dont finish the plate. I get full quicker and I dont have to listen to the awkward...why arent you eating spill! I started doing this at home too. We order chicken wings alot, kids and hubby's faves, I started drinking water instead of pop or a beer, and I find I only eat 6 wings instead of 12....which is really good for me....those wings add up calories reaaaalllllllyyyyy fast!!!

Tooraloora, some great advice for you already from the wonderful JUDDD Buddds.

My own twopennorth:-
You've been JUDDDing for quite a while now and if you're confident you have well-established sirtuin levels, you can probably afford to be less strict. If you can't exercise on a low-cal day without feeling dreadful, then don't. MDs are great for shunting a DD but only if you can comfortably continue doing straight rotations from there.

I started at the end of August and have often had to do two or three UDs in a row. I just eat as sensibly as possible, then fit in a DD as soon as I can and get back to clean rotations asap. Having that approach has helped me to not to gain weight over a series of social and holiday situations and has kept the loss steadily going downwards overall.

Just do your rotations as often as possible and, rather than starving yourself and feeling miserable, work to not go over your UD allowance when you can't rotate. Save MDs for easier days.

LCG, I agree about being careful on UDs, and in particular, going with Nancy's "perfect bites"... like Elaine had to decide if a fellow was sponge-worthy, I am pretty choosy about something being calorie-worthy

Also, Nancy, yes, I do need to eat for energy on exercise days (and spin is what I teach, I cannot NOT go). I wonder about more fluids, Katie... I probably almost always under-hydrate (even as a kid, my parents were on my case about not drinking enough... ... not a very thirsty person I guess). And yes to more protein too... I tend to go for carbs on exercise days, which is fine when they are UDs, but not so good on MDS.

Flossy, as for being confident about sirtuin, I don't really know (what would be signs? I do have JUDDD calm most of the time, and some of the high energy and wakefulness... but I also feel really really hungry just about every single DD).

I think you are right though about sensible UDs and ensuring a few solid DDs each week, and not starving on exercise days... this is not meant to be a sufferfest... and I need not race to lose my last 12 'vanity' lbs

as I got got my period (on day 23... sheesh, perimenopause can really suck, and short cycles -- and unpredictable cycles -- is a big part of the suckage for me, that and night sweats). anyhoo, now I understand better my grumpiness, headaches and hunger of the last 2 or so day

Re being confident about the sirtuin flowing:
I have had periods when I couldn't do rotations for a few days but my weight stayed stable in circumstances where I would normally have gained a few pounds. I would say that was the sirtuin doing its stuff. I haven't had long breaks, so I'm sure I've been able to keep up my sirtuin levels by fitting in rotations whenever possible.

My weight loss has been fairly slow at only 1lb per week but my rotations have been fairly messy too. I'm happy to have slow but steady progress, rather than struggle and suffer in the hope of faster scale results.